Did Google and the Hour of Code Get "Left" and "Right" Wrong? 107
theodp writes: Command the dancers to "point left" in Google's dance-themed Code Boogie learn-to-code tutorial on the Santa Tracker website, and the dancers actually point to their own right. The lesson seems to reinforce a common mistake made by younger children learning to code in LOGO, which is to use their own or the display screen's frame of reference rather than the turtle's frame of reference. "These misconceptions," explained Richard E. Mayer, "may be due to the knowledge that the child brings with him or her to the programming environment. For example, children who possess an egocentric conception of space (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) would fail to recognize that when the turtle is at a 180-degree orientation, its right corresponds to the child's left." So, it should probably be asked if the learn-to-code tutorials from Lucasfilm, Code.org, and Google that are being used to teach the world's K-12 schoolchildren to code might be making the same mistake as 4-7 year-olds. In this year's flagship flagship Lucasfilm/Code.org Star Wars Hour of Code tutorial, for example, command the droid BB-8 to move left and it could move to either its own left or right depending on what direction it's pointed in. So, did the "Largest Learning Event in History" also get "left" and "right" wrong?
Stage Left (Score:5, Insightful)
Welcome to the difference between "Left" and "Stage Left".
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Port and starboard are no less ambiguous in this situation.m Are you looking in the direction of the front of the ship, or is the dancer? Stage left is the proper way to say it.
Re:Stage Left (Score:5, Informative)
Port and starboard are explicitly referenced to the object's "forward", i.e. object's left and object's right respectively. So in this case port is the turtle's left no matter which way they face. That's why they use it on boats and planes and things where some might be facing backwards.
(By the way, if you need help remembering colors and orientations, port wine is red - and port has the same number of letters as left. Starboard is right and green.)
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Why not just use the unambiguous CW or CCW ?? (Clockwise or Counter-Clockwise, respectively)
In computer graphics we always talk about a Axis (of Rotation) + Angle as Left/Right is unambiguous -- some things don't even _have_ a (natural) forward.
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CCW and CW are not without ambiguity. You need to know if it is about a vector looking down on the object or up through the object.
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Wrong point.
1. Port and starboard seem to have roots back to 1300s at the least, which predates clockwise
2. The next naming nightmare will come when we will have space ships which face directions, but the hull around is circular.
3. Clock direction you still need to know what direction you are going in
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Well, sorta. It predates the word "clockwise", but not the concept. On sundials in the northern hemisphere, the shadow moves clockwise, which is why clocks were made to run that way too. Before there was "clockwise" and "counterclockwise" there was "sunwise" (or "deasil") and "widdershins", which referred to the same directions.
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What about widdershins?
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What about widdershins?
Widdershins is a bit different. It usually refers to the direction you go around something, rather than the direction you turn (e.g. while stationary). I realize that these are obviously related, but there's an implied difference in perspective -- counterclockwise can refer both to a path direction around an axis or the axis rotation direction itself. Widdershins, at least traditionally, tends to refer to the former, or more accurately, keeping an object to your left as you circumambulate.
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Port and starboard are explicitly referenced to the object's "forward", i.e. object's left and object's right respectively. So in this case port is the turtle's left no matter which way they face. That's why they use it on boats and planes and things where some might be facing backwards.
Only if the object in question is the vessel. If you were using port and starboard, you would still have to address the question of whether the turtle is the vessel or a passenger.
Re: Stage Left (Score:1)
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Port and starboard are only unambiguous if you're on a ship.
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Re:Stage Left (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously you do not know what Port and Starboard mean... by definition they are unambiguous.
They are indeed unambiguous, but no more so than left and right.
If someone stands in front of you facing you as you walk towards them says "turn left", it means in your frame. Not theirs.
If someone on a boat ahead of you as you sail towards them says "turn port", it means in your boat's frame. Not theirs.
In either case, there's no ambiguity. The size of the frame of reference is larger for port/starboard, but it's still a non-fixed frame of reference. Ambiguity is avoided by always using the frame of reference of the recipient at the time the message is received, not your own.
It's like driving an RC car. If you tell it to turn left, it's the RC car's left. Always. Anyone who don't intuitively understand that has a mental deficiency or doesn't match the 3+ age requirement.
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No, by definition they are fixed to a frame of refereence and are only unambiguous as long as you do not step outside that frame. Consider two ships, one northbound, one southbound. Port on one ship is the opposite direction from port on the other.
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Easy: Milk hand, cookie hand. Done.
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Easy: Milk hand, cookie hand. Done.
MIND. BLOWN.
Thank you, AC, for resolving an issue that has plagued me for years.
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The problem is that "left" and "right" are ambiguous, unless the reference point is specified. It is better to use the unambiguous port and starboard [wikipedia.org].
Same problem using different terms. "Port" and "Starboard" are also ambiguous unless the reference point is specified.
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Obviously you are not a theatre geek; "stage left", "stage right", "up stage" and "down stage" are terms designed to remove ambiguity.
Left/right bad for circles (Score:2)
I don't believe in the case of rotation left and right really are the correct descriptions, since the bottom could be rotating left, so the top is rotating right, correspondingly. Clockwise and anti-clockwise (using western definition) make more sense, IMHO.
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So you're on a ship facing aft, the dancers are on another ship facing aft, the ships are stern to stern. What does "dancers point starboard" mean?
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You're at an amazing dual production of HMS Pinafore.
Snagglepuss: Exit, Stage Left (Score:2)
Like Snagglepuss I'll step to the left [genius.com]
Not a mistake (Score:5, Informative)
They are not 'making a mistake.' In this case, left and right are ambiguous. It is why is real situations like this (eg a director telling a dancer which way to point) the terms 'stage left' or 'house left' would be used. Or at the very least, 'your left' or 'my left'.
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But I thought frames had been deprecated! Fucking HTML!
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But I thought frames had been deprecated! Fucking HTML!
"This page uses frames, but your browser doesn't support them."
Only terrorists use frames, Comrade. Report to the Re-education camp immediately.
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Is HTML inertial or non-intertial?
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Yep, and I also believe that throwing this ambiguity at them early is a good thing. Esp. if it gets them thinking about the difference between different reference frames.
Only if the ambiguity is discussed and made into an explicit teaching point, which doesn't appear to be the case here. Just throwing in a particular interpretation of an ambiguous case doesn't count -- it frustrates some by being counterintuitive, and simultaneously doesn't challenge those whose intuition matches the chosen interpretation.
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They are not 'making a mistake.' In this case, left and right are ambiguous.
There's nothing ambiguous about it at all. In imperative form, unqualified left and right always refers to the frame of the recipient of the message, never the producer of the message.
If I say "step to the left", it means "step to your left", not "figure out my direction and step towards my left". Whether I'm spinning like a dirndl or communicating over radio so you don't know what way I'm pointing, you always know which way you are pointing, and that's the only left that matters. There's no ambiguity
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They are not 'making a mistake.' In this case, left and right are ambiguous. It is why is real situations like this (eg a director telling a dancer which way to point) the terms 'stage left' or 'house left' would be used. Or at the very least, 'your left' or 'my left'.
Precisely.
"Left" and "right" only have meaning in context. In this situation, the viewer's frame of reference is stable, while the turtle's (or whatever's) is not, so it makes just as much sense to use the viewer's frame of reference.
Expectations (Score:2)
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This is why I try to avoid using LOGO-TURTLE and Code Boogie for mission critical applications.
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But we want our system stack to be turtles all the way down.
It depends on whose left you specify (Score:2)
This is why sailors don't use left and right. They use port and starboard, which are specified as port being left if you are at the front of the ship looking in the forward direction of travel. If they just said "left" or "right", the instruction was actually ambiguous. Another poster already pointed out that in this context, you have "stage left" and "stage right" which serves the same purpose as the nautical terms.
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This is where "nested" composition references come in handy:
self.left
captain.left
ourBoat.left
enemyBoat.left
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But what keeps you from ataching the same frame of reference to left and right as you do to port and starbord? Like when you go to your doctor, he will know, even when talking about your case with other doctors, that the pain in the right arm is always in YOUR right arm.
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"But what keeps you from ataching the same frame of reference to left and right as you do to port and starbord?"
The lack of a clear convention in other contexts.
Assuming you're right about the medical scenario, it's because doctors are taught that as a convention. The general public isn't.
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Every played any game (2D or 3D)? Tell me O wise one, which direction does your character move, when the "left" and "right" arrow keys are pressed?
Tell me, O wise one, are we talking about Pacman or Asteroids...?
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Invisibility would give you a HUGE amount of power in the world.
Pshaww, invisibility is a lame-o "super power". Manipulating probability is best super power, hands down.
Oh my, this test is very hard, whats the probability i will pass? Let's crank that up to 100%.
Hmmm I'm not sure i can jump over this building, let's change my chance of success to 100%
What would happen if I put the chance of having laser eyes to 100%, WHOA i got laser eyes!
What's the chance that my cancer will instantly go into remission and never return? I'd say....100%.
See that hot chick right there? I
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We have lots of thinks that get you from point A to point B very quickly already.
Umm, wouldn't that be teleportation? ;-)
I wish we had teleportation...I would choose that!
Another hatchling left behind (Score:4, Insightful)
For example, children who possess an egocentric conception of space (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) would fail to recognize that when the turtle is at a 180-degree orientation, its right corresponds to the child's left."
I'd argue that this is a failure in instruction. If s/he was told at the beginning that s/he *was* the turtle, perhaps with a couple code examples demonstrated in first-reptile view side-by-side with a top-level view, the child would probably get the idea right off the bat.
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That's not a failure in instruction, it's a test to see if the person is egocentric or not. People who are egocentric will think of themselves and their own point of view by default, without taking into consideration the subject, unless specified otherwise.
That's Piaget's theory, certainly, but Piaget was wrong. Try reading Margaret Donaldson's book Children's Minds, which quite nicely summarises all the research against Piaget. It places a big emphasis on the role of task wording in Piaget's results and suggests that the failure to "decentre" in Piaget's test subjects was the result of questions which failed to connect with intuition. Crucially, much of Piaget's scenarios didn't realise any concepts of motive or agency. Dancers are people, so even young chil
Game Point of view (Isomorphic or non.) (Score:3)
In a 3rd Person Isomorphic situation where your character runs all over a static screen (think Diablo), then left or right should be based on the screen, as you're not in the same 'perspective' as the character is. However, for 3rd Person (over the shoulder) or First Person games, then left or right become the character's perspective (which incidentally lines up with the screen.
In the Hour of Code example (I did the StarWars one not the elves) it was pretty obvious what perspective you were in and how left and right should work. However, if the elves just dance (and don't move) it's possible the Santa one is 3rd person Over the shoulder, with a rotated camera.
The question is if you're controlling the elf, or telling the elf what to do. There's a subtle difference.
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And if you are writing a scroller, the character's position is actually fixed, and moving "left" means moving the frame (background, sprites and all) right.
"screen" left and right works just fine. (Score:3)
Some have mentioned the idea of "stage" left and right. Coming from a theater and television background I can relate to this, but it is unnecessary in this application.
My wife just got her entire school to do the hour of code. She teaches a 1st and 2nd grade combo class. Adding the difficulty of character-centric directions from the get-go would make it more difficult for some first and second graders to do this, that is a concept that can come later. A few of her students breezed through the entire first lesson set, most can just grasp all the concepts, and some need a little more help but always succeed. (they work in teams, trading off keyboard/mouse time, and that works best for kids of their age.) and it teaches an amazing wealth of concepts even without having to deal with third party perspective direction.
It would be a good concept to switch it up on a much later lesson and specifically talk about the difference between screen direction and character perspective direction. They did not 'get it wrong' for the basic lessons in any way shape or form.
This is much ado about nothing. The hour of code and code.org offerings are amazing as they are. They are giving kids a big boost in fundamental concepts they would not normally learn or at least in an applied manner until much later. It makes learning fun. Unlike most technology oriented education programs, this one actually is useful and works. When first and second graders go home and explain to their parents what an algorithm is and how they use one that's a pretty awesome thing.
Simon Says... (Score:2)
Take a step to your left! [youtube.com]
left and right.. no difference (Score:2)
proof:
left -> left -> left = right
No (Score:3)
Your other left.
Obvious conspiracy (Score:1)
A teacher's opinion (Score:4, Interesting)
After my previous post I went and talked to my teacher wife directly about this. She said at the age level that she teaches (first and second grade) it would be a really bad idea. They are just then learning their directions and compass directions and changing the perspective would make it very confusing.
Also, she pointed out that some, but not all of the lessons use compass directions, North South East and West. Switching East and West on them when they are just learning about them is not an age-appropriate thing to do, their brains are not ready for that yet. You and I get that concept easily but at that age it's not there yet. She did say that the code.org programs are an excellent and applied way for kids to learn compass directions.
The interesting thing however is that if you DID want to teach it, the tools are there. One of the first things that they learn to do is to define the function of the direction buttons in the GUI when making interactive games. You could wire them in reverse. But there's no way that she would be doing that with her grade level.
This is a concept that should be saved for and given as a lesson for the older kids using the more advanced classes that are programming directly in javascript.
I'd like to hear from more actual teachers who are actually using code.org with their kids.
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As far as the frame of reference problem goes, does your wife ever have the kids play Simon Says? Kids seem to catch on pretty fast to the concept when it's their turn to be leader (and the other kids will be quick to correct them when they're wrong!). :-)
It is interesting, I think, to consider that almost 50 years of educational research may have been overlooked or disregarded in the making of the learn-to-code tutorials being used by schools around the world (LOGO, which most of the tutorials are patterne
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After my previous post I went and talked to my teacher wife directly about this. She said at the age level that she teaches (first and second grade) it would be a really bad idea. They are just then learning their directions and compass directions and changing the perspective would make it very confusing.
If they are learning about different frames of reference, like their own left and right versus the compass directions, I would think it would be very valuable to introduce even more frames of reference, so they get a grasp on it being the frame of reference that changes, and not just NSEW being a special case to be memorized.
There are way too many people who grow up that can't read a map if north doesn't point up, because their teacher never taught them to understand frames of reference. Likely, all they t
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I don't recall anyone talking about reference frames specifically, either. Admittedly school was a long time ago, and I've forgotten quite a lot of the specifics since then.
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Changing reference frames is something they usually don't get into until college level mechanics.
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Could you ask your teacher wife please if CW and CCW (Clockwise and Count-Clockwise) would be any clearer for?
- older children, and
- younger children.
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After my previous post I went and talked to my teacher wife directly about this. She said at the age level that she teaches (first and second grade) it would be a really bad idea. They are just then learning their directions and compass directions and changing the perspective would make it very confusing.
Maybe I'm overestimating my own abilities in first and second grade, but I would think this is something you could easily solve with real world role play. One kid is given poses and instructs another kid to turn left/right/around to match. If you actually see the 90/180 degree turn happening, it's not a complicated concept and I think they'd pretty quickly be able to tell the difference between their own right and the other kid's right and give instructions in the other kid's reference. Once they've underst
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The examples all build on each other. I could see throwing in a frame of reference example. However, it would be *much* later in the lessons. Frame of reference is a pretty abstract concept. It means you are able to put yourself in someone elses shoes as it were. Many children are quite incapable of doing that for awhile. You could teach it to them true enough. But it would mean dedicating a rather large chunk lesson of time. Sometimes you need to walk before you can fly. What do I mean by that? I mean sometimes you need to pick your battles to just get in the lessons in that you want. Frame of reference is something I would personally toss in a heartbeat if crunched out for time and I was teaching someone programming.
If order to pick your battles, you have to pick your battlefield. If you include "point left" and "point right", you have already stepped onto the frame-of-reference battlefield.
If you don't want to teach something, don't pick an example set that relies on it.
Best to avoid left/right directions altogether (Score:1)
Google and parity violation (Score:2)
This is part of my grander theory that we live in a mirror world where DNA winds the other way and so do screws. Our liver is on the opposite side. Game controllers have the buttons on the other side than you think and the letters are printed backwards. We switch the words "left" and "right" because our brains were wired ass-backwards when the English language de
Ambis of the World Unite! (Score:2)
this is why we always drop a compass rose on any kind of map
We can work "backwards" just Bloody Well tell us we need to!!
Cultural / language differences too (Score:1)
I say this because I'm reminded of a question posed to me by a foreign colleague (at the time) who was writing documentation for software. He wanted to convey that the user should look for a button on the left side of the screen, but he was questioning that the proper form might be to refer to it as the right side of the screen, since it was the screen's right.
His logic went something like this:
Which way are you facing? And which s
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